UGBC Election Data Shows Less Support in CSOM for Achampong, King

A total of 2,680 votes were cast in this year’s Undergraduate Government of Boston College presidential election, won by Akosua Achampong and Tt King last week. That’s up slightly from last year’s total of 2,592, but still down from the 3,411 students who voted two years ago. Due to penalties received by two teams in the race, a total of 2,431 votes were counted in this year’s election, but this Heights analysis uses the full 2,680 votes cast.

Casey Doyle, co-chair of the Elections Committee and CSOM ’17, said in an email that the EC was happy with the increase in voter turnout this year, which is always its goal.

This year, 741 freshmen, 770 sophomores, 684 juniors, and 485 seniors voted. It’s a significant decrease in the percentage of turnout composed of juniors—last year, 932 members of the Class of 2017 voted, or 36 percent of the total turnout. This year, juniors made up 25.5 percent of the turnout. The shift may be attributable to the fact that all three teams in last year’s election were made up juniors, whereas this year’s election featured a pair of sophomores, Raymond Mancini and Matt Batsinelas, both CSOM ’19.

The senior class saw a notable increase in participation this year, from 298 last year, or 11.5 percent of the turnout, to 18 percent this year.

This year’s election also featured a notable distribution of support by school. Achampong and King received 71 percent of the vote in the Morrissey College of Arts and Sciences, 80 percent of the vote in the Connell School of Nursing, and 84 percent of the vote in the Lynch School of Education. They received just 51 percent of the vote in the Carroll School of Management, however.

Mancini and Batsinelas received nearly 31 percent of the CSOM vote, and Daniel Wu and Jack Kelly, both MCAS ’18, received nearly 16 percent. CSOM represented the highest portion of the vote for both of the latter two teams received in any school.

CSON has the highest percentage of female students at 93 percent, followed LSOE at 85 percent, MCAS at 55 percent, and CSOM at 34 percent women, according to the BC Fact Book for 2016-17.

“In my opinion, we must respectfully juggle the fact that racism must color the way we see how amazing these activists are treated, very differently from the thoughtful leaders of the Black LIves Matter movement,” said professor C. Shawn McGuffey. “We must do both of these.” […]